Judge: Indiana must recognize ailing woman's same-sex marriage

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ordered Indiana to recognize the marriage of a lesbian couple, one of whom is terminally ill, on an emergency basis.

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ordered Indiana to recognize the marriage of a lesbian couple, one of whom is terminally ill, on an emergency basis.

Reuters

Indiana must recognize the same-sex marriage between a terminally ill woman and her spouse, a U.S. appeals court ruled in an emergency order on Tuesday.

The ruling requires Indiana to recognize the marriage of the Amy Sandler and Nikole Quasney, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2009, while the state appeals a federal judge's ruling that its ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Richard Young had ordered Indiana in April to recognize the marriage of Sandler and Quasney and ruled in June that the state's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. The two Indiana residents were married in Massachusetts.

Quasney and Sandler, both 37, live in Munster, a town in northwestern Indiana, where they are raising two daughters born to Sandler through sperm from an anonymous donor, according to court papers.

Quasney has undergone multiple surgeries and aggressive chemotherapy since her diagnosis and now measures her life in weeks, not years, attorneys for the couple told the appeals court in their request for an emergency order.

Hundreds of gay couples got married in Indiana in the few days between Young's ruling last week on the constitutionality of the same-sex marriage ban and the granting of a stay by the appeals court. Before Tuesday, the stay had also suspended recognition of the Quasney and Sandler marriage.

The order from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was released hours after a federal judge found Kentucky's ban same-sex marriage unconstitutional. That judge stayed his ruling pending an appeal.